Homosexuality ‘grounds for asylum’

Refugees facing imprisonment in their home country because they are gay may have grounds to be granted asylum in the EU, the 28-nation bloc’s top court ruled yesterday.

The existence of laws allowing the imprisonment of homosexuals “may constitute an act of persecution per se,” if they are routinely enforced, the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice said.

A homosexual cannot be expected to conceal his sexual orientation in his home country to avoid persecution since that would amount to renouncing a “characteristic fundamental to a person’s identity”, the court added. It ruled on cases of three people from Sierra Leone, Uganda and Senegal seeking asylum in Holland.